LBC 97.3 and Smooth Radio were among the winners in London, while Xfm and Choice FM both lost listeners, in the latest official Rajar radio audience figures.

Global Radio-owned LBC 97.3 enjoyed a good third quarter of 2008, up 10% year on year to 647,000. Sister station LBC News 1152 was up 23% to 345,000.

LBC 97.3 stretched its lead over rival talk station, BBC London 94.9, which lost 10% of its audience compared with the same period last year, falling to 469,000. The BBC station was up marginally on the previous quarter.

Smooth Radio, owned by GMG Radio - part of the group that publishes MediaGuardian.co.uk - had 538,000 listeners in the third quarter of this year, up 13% on the same period last year, according to Rajar figures published today.

Excluding its new north-east station, which was not broadcasting this time last year, the Smooth Radio network of stations increased its total audience by around 10% to 2.46 million.

There was less good news for two other Global Radio stations in the capital from the third-quarter Rajar figures.

Choice FM fell 25% year on year to 457,000, while Xfm in London lost 17% of its audience, both year on year and quarter and quarter, to 463,000.

In Scotland, GMG Radio-owned Real Radio remains the biggest commercial station with 759,000 listeners, a 15.9% share, down from 809,000 and a 20.4% share in the same period last year.

Real Radio in Wales added 10,000 listeners year on year, to 394,000, a 10.3% share.

Elsewhere in Wales, Global Radio's Red Dragon added 20,000 listeners on the same period last year and upped its share from 9.5% to 11.4%.

Three out of the four original Galaxy stations, also owned by Global, increased their weekly reach year on year, in Birmingham (up 45,000 to 389,000), Manchester (up 38,000 to 455,000) and Yorkshire (up 44,000 to 977,000).

The only one of the four to slip back on the same period last year was Galaxy North East, which lost 31,000 listeners to fall to 465,000.

Bauer Radio's Kiss network of stations collectively grew 3.3% year on year to 3.19 million, while its Magic stable slipped back 2.2% to 3.35 million.

Overall, local commercial radio had a 32% share of the market, its best performance since the second quarter of last year.

The BBC's local and regional stations fell back to 9.3%, from 9.6% in the previous quarter and 9.4% in the same period last year.

Among the BBC's big local and regional stations, BBC Radio Scotland was a big year-on-year winner, up from 819,000 to 947,000, while BBC Radio Merseyside was up from 305,000 to 338,000.

BBC Southern Counties Radio fell from 256,000 to 212,000 year on year, while BBC WM in Birmingham slipped back from 313,000 to 293,000 over the same period.

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